Colour me confused. I was after an external HDD today and naturally turned to PriceSpy for a decent price. I saw the Seagate Expansion Desktop Drive 3TB for $228.85 from PBTech which seemed a decent deal.

I walked to their store to pick one up and it was priced at $286.XX...

I asked if I could pick the unit up for the same price as their site had it for sale and was told $26X.XX was the best they could do.

What?

Surely the same product from the same store should be the same price, right? Or am I missing something?

1080p: Colour me confused. I was after an external HDD today and naturally turned to PriceSpy for a decent price. I saw the Seagate Expansion Desktop Drive 3TB for $228.85 from PBTech which seemed a decent deal.

I walked to their store to pick one up and it was priced at $286.XX...

I asked if I could pick the unit up for the same price as their site had it for sale and was told $26X.XX was the best they could do.

What?

Surely the same product from the same store should be the same price, right? Or am I missing something?

Was it exactly the same store? I think they have different ones around the country? What was their explanation if it wasn't a pricing error on the website? Just buy it from the online store if the other store won't match the online price. They just lose a sale.

The prices in both PriceSpy and Geekzone/PriceMe are supplied by the store via a feed. These may have errors. Since these web sites are not the official online outlet I doubt you could make them sell for that price. Check prices in other retailers and go from there.

I'm just wondering if you're in Wellington and looked at the PB Tech site rather than the PB Tech Wellington site. They are not one and the same.

That was my issue. I wonder why they would do that? Pricing differently for Wellington then Auckland when I can just order from Auckland...

Are they actually the same store though, or just using the brand name. On their website they say they have 8 branches, and if thats the case you would think all the branches would have products at the same price. I can't see why the prices would be different. I mean if you go to chain like Noel Leemings or DSE, all their prices tend to be the same no matter where they are in NZ.

Wonder why they're owned separately? Parallel Imports is the same too, their webstore & the north shore store are owned by the same owners while the the rest are not (iirc, there are some other details too).

Who I am: multi time Ironman finisher, University of Auckland graduate, Freelancer (mainly focused on website development, message me for work).

dman: Wonder why they're owned separately? Parallel Imports is the same too, their webstore & the north shore store are owned by the same owners while the the rest are not (iirc, there are some other details too).

I generally regard franchises as either a "Loose franchise" or a "Strict franchise". Loose franchises are essentially a group of independent businesses sharing business name and marketing. Lawnmowing "chains" like Jim's Mowing are often like this.

Strict franchises give every illusion of being a single business. Pricing is the same across stores, vouchers are valid everywhere, etc. Best example of a strict franchise is McDonald's.

What makes PB more confusing than your average "loose franchise" is that all of the Auckland stores are majority-owned by the same people, leaving Hamilton and Wellington as the only exceptions.

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